Sociology Essay: The Greenhouse Effect and Societal Impacts

This sociology essay explores the greenhouse effect, defining it as a natural warming process essential for life on Earth, but intensified by human activities like burning fossil fuels and deforestation, leading to global warming. The essay details the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels due to industrial activities. It outlines three major effects of climate change: rising global temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, and increased extreme weather events. The essay further discusses the impact on agriculture, glaciers, sea levels, and marine ecosystems, including coral bleaching and fisheries. It emphasizes the effects of climate change on the United States, including intensified droughts and the proliferation of invasive species. The essay references several scientific studies and concludes by highlighting the urgent need to address global warming and its societal consequences.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOCIOLOGY
Greenhouse effect can be defined as the natural process for warming up the surface of the earth.
When the energy from the sun reaches the atmosphere of earth, some of it gets reflected back to
the space and the rest of it get absorbed a well as re-radiated by the greenhouse gases. The
absorbed energy warms up the atmosphere of the earth’s surface and thus maintaining the
temperature of the earth at around 33 degrees Celsius warmer than allowing life on earth to exist.
This greenhouse effect is known as heat trapping. Planet would be a frozen desert without any
greenhouse gases. Human activities, however, have intensified the greenhouse effect and caused
global warming, mainly through burning fossil fuels and by deforestation (Jang & Hart, 2015).
Humans emissions as well as activities have resulted in around hundred percent of the global
warming observed 1950, as per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since
the last century, burning of fossil fuels that includes coal as well as oil has enhanced the carbon
dioxide (CO2) concentration (Cook et al., 2016). This has taken place due to the fact that the
burning process of coal and oil gets combined with carbon with oxygen in the air to make CO2.
According to researchers, the industrial activities on which the modern society depends have
increased the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per
million within the last one fifty year (Darwin, 2017).
The three chief effect of climate change includes increment in global surface temperature,
changes in the patterns of rainfall as well as changes in the frequency of extreme weather events.
Scientists are highly confident about the fact that the temperature of earth will continue to rise
for decades to come and the chief reason behind this will be greenhouse gases produced by
human activities. In case the temperature of the mountain glaciers rises two degree, landslides
will take place and the permafrost will melt away. Sea levels could increase by one meter by

2SOCIOLOGY
2100, displacing 10 percent of the world's population. Changing the precipitation monopoly will
have an overwhelming negative impact on agriculture (Donnelly et al., 2017). Rainfall is the
main factor in both germination and fruit formation in the growth and processing of food crops.
But with global climate change, temperatures will increase and precipitation in some areas will
rise. Rainfall will decline elsewhere. Apart from the effect of high and low precipitation on crop
levels, disturbances such as coastal flooding are expected to reduce the amount of land available
for farming.
Such environmental shifts are already hard for farmers to deal with as nearly every plant depends
on the season and on the rainfall. Changes in temperatures and rainfall caused by climate change
can interact further with other plant growth variables such as atmospheric gases, fertilizers, pests,
crop diseases, weeds and organic soils (King, Karoly, & Henley, 2017). Again, unexpected
responses are predicted.
The broad coral barrier in Australia has been greatly affected by climate change.
According to data that was released in May 2017 by the U.S. Geological Survey and Portland
State University, from the year 1966, the enhancement of temperature, has significantly
diminished the size of 39 glaciers and the worst of which have encountered reduction by 85
percent. Upwards ocean temperatures have caused a large portion of coral blackening – a disease
in which the coral turns yellow and is vulnerable to mass death. In 2016 and 2017, scientists
have recorded coral mortality at 50 percent after a back-to-back bleaching incident; half the live
coral has died as a result of bleaching. The geological kit Glacier, Montana, was hit by global
warming as well.

3SOCIOLOGY
Most fisheries around the world are affected by climate change. Rising surface temperatures
have pushed many marine species outside their normal range into colder waters. For many
countries ' food supplies and economies, fishing is critical. About 40 million people, for instance,
use seafood from the Lower Mekong River in Asia as the world's largest freshwater fishing
industry. The projected declines in water flows and rises in water levels in regions such as these
can adversely affect the quality of water and fish species, and affect food supplies for the
communities that depend on such resources (Huang et al., 2017).
The United States still experiences major global warming problems. In addition to enhancing
flood and drought conditions, the rapid climate change in the country has also culminated in the
proliferation of invasive species. The drought in the southwest of USA seems to intensify due to
global warming which can be considered to be a highly alarming situation for the nation (Cook et
al., 2016).

4SOCIOLOGY
Reference list
Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P. T., Anderegg, W. R., Verheggen, B., Maibach, E. W., ... &
Nuccitelli, D. (2016). Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on
human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4), 048002.
DARwin, R. (2017). The impact of global warming on agriculture: a Ricardian analysis:
comment. Climate Change, 125.
Donnelly, C., Greuell, W., Andersson, J., Gerten, D., Pisacane, G., Roudier, P., & Ludwig, F.
(2017). Impacts of climate change on European hydrology at 1.5, 2 and 3 degrees mean
global warming above preindustrial level. Climatic Change, 143(1-2), 13-26.
Huang, J., Yu, H., Dai, A., Wei, Y., & Kang, L. (2017). Drylands face potential threat under 2 C
global warming target. Nature Climate Change, 7(6), 417.
Jang, S. M., & Hart, P. S. (2015). Polarized frames on “climate change” and “global warming”
across countries and states: Evidence from Twitter big data. Global Environmental
Change, 32, 11-17.
King, A. D., Karoly, D. J., & Henley, B. J. (2017). Australian climate extremes at 1.5 C and 2 C
of global warming. Nature Climate Change, 7(6), 412.